Reflective Statement

Fig.1 - Reflective Statement

Last year and this year has been a very intriguing year for us all in my opinion. Looking back at my 'project proposal' I am happy to see how far I have gotten. I never imagined I would be this far in the project. It would be hard not to talk about the pandemic, however, the pandemic did have a big impact on my project. This is because I thought I would do less work and be less motivated, withal, it was surprisingly the other way round. During this pandemic, the campus was off-limit and I as everyone else worked home. I became more active and motivated at home than I would have on campus. During this period of time, I realised, I have been quarantining myself in uni than at home. Somehow it was easier to express yourself, be motivated by people to get up and communicate here than I would have there. This gave me more time to think, understanding myself, and gaining my sanity back. To conclude this paragraph, in my opinion, this project went well and I feel like I have putten more effort, as I can clearly see and feel progress.

Fig.2 - Using Maya for Project

When looking at my orthographic/ characters, I was thinking about what would happen. How I would struggle; with modeling the characters, the time, wondering about the duration of the pipeline for each character, and coding. However, I stopped worrying about the future and walked through it day by day, and most importantly stopped being ashamed of asking for help, mostly if it was something basic that I was supposed to know years ago. This is where the tutorials were really helpful as I made sure I signed up every Wednesday even though I had nothing prepared, as this forced me to get something done. At the end of the day, I felt good and motivated to do more because I felt like I was finally progressing in Maya, "the software that hates me." Maya turned around quickly for me when I started accepting my mistakes and learning from them. As a reward; modeling, sculpting, and problem solving became easier and faster.

Fig.3 - Undetsanding Maya

After modeling the characters, I went straight into creating the rooms. By this time I thought it would be easier to model the objects, however, I fumbled in the process of making. At the end of the day, it all mattered on practice 'making' perfect. Same as modeling the characters I progressed in Maya and started understanding each tool I was using. What I figured out for myself is that "is not perfect the first time." Meaning there is a lot of refinements to do. This making Maya easier for me to work with as I experiment first to find the mistakes before creating and finalizing.  This is because when starting I am scared of making a mistake or a mistake is more likely to happen. However, when experimenting you work faster and wreckless making you find; mistakes, things you never knew, and using accidents as an advantage.

Fig.4 - Gaining skills

I feel like I am more confident with Maya than I was before. I reached levels that I never thought I would, for example using N-cloth and gravity to create a cloth stuck on a wardrobe all on my own. Weirdly, I learned a lot during this period of time and I feel 'deviatedly' elevated. And hope and wish I carry this on towards my Major.